1. Field of Application
This invention relates to equipment and a system for removing a contaminent floating upon a body of fluid; and more particularly to equipment and a system for cleaning up oil spills.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Environmentalists and public opinion have greatly impressed upon the public, industry and government (municipal, state, and federal) the need to clean up and maintain the cleanliness of our bodies of water, streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Great efforts and strides have been made to clean up the effluents directed into such bodies of water. However, sometimes by accident, and sometimes on purpose, contaminents are deposited or dumped into such bodies of water.
A number of such contaminents are of a lighter density then the water into which they are dumped, and such contaminents end up floating as a slick upon the body of water. One most common contaminent is oil which more often then desired is dumped, spilled or otherwise escapes into a body of water. Sometimes this occurs at off-shore drilling rigs, other times it happens while oil is being unloaded from, or loaded onto, oil carrying ships. Too often lately immense spills have resulted from collisions of oil carrying ships, or other accidents whereby oil from such ships is spilled or dumped into the water.
A great meny systems, and numerous types of equipment, have been offered to combat such oil spills, and assist in cleaning the contaminating oil from the surface of the water upon which it lays. Burning is obviously dangerous; while waiting for the wind and waves to disipate the oil may require too long a time and result in costly damage to shore, fish, and water fowl. Equipment such as that shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,693,801 granted on Sept. 26, 1972 to I. C. Pogonowski for Water Surface Skimmer With Check Valve; in U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,766 granted on Apr. 17, 1973 to D. M. Horne et al for Vacuum Skimming Apparatus For Removing Liquid Contaminents Floating In Confined Bodies of Water; and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,909,416 granted on Sept. 30, 1975 to C. I. Veld for Method And Apparatus For Separating Liquids Of Different Specific Gravities From a Mixture Of The Same, all require intake heads which float in the oil contaminated water and since each such head can only pick up a relatively limited amount of oil numerous heads and deploying beams and conduits are required. This greatly adds to the cost and complexity of such equipment. In addition, such equipment introduces the oil and sea-water mixture into the top of a separating chamber which must upset the separation process taking place therein since the separated oil must float on top of the sea-water in the chamber.
Alternative equipment, such as that shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,720 granted on Sept. 22, 1970 to D. Chablaix for Installation For Recovery Of A Liquid Floating On A Water Surface, and in Dutch Pat. No. 96,580 granted to Deutsche Werft Aktiengesellschaft for Apparatus For Separating Oil From A Mixture Of Water Oil And Air, also provide individual pick up heads of limited size and associate them with separation tanks and systems which are highly complex in operation and relatively expensive in price and operation. Still other available equipment such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,348,690 granted on Oct. 24, 1967 to J. Cornelissen for Catcher For Cleaning Water Surfaces; in U.S. Pat. No. 3,615,017 granted on Oct. 26, 1971 to J. M. Valdespino for Oil Entrapment And Containment Watercraft; and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,760,944 granted on Sept. 25, 1973 to E. A. Bell et al for Suction Oil Decanter, all show equipment and systems which suffer from deficiencies which limit their effective use. In Cornelissen for example, the intake is quite limited; while in Bell et al large volumes of intake air are required necessitating costly and complex air moving equipment. The Valdespino equipment, on the other hand, provides no means to control the extent of the intake, and by receiving such intake so close to the level at which oil separation occurs must contend with an inefficient separation system due to turbulence.